Predicting Code Comprehension: A Novel Approach to Align Human Gaze with Code Using Deep Neural Networks
The better the code quality and the less complex the code, the easier it is for software developers to comprehend and evolve it. Yet, how do we best detect quality concerns in the code? Existing measures to assess code quality, such as McCabe’s cyclomatic complexity, are decades old and neglect the human aspect. Research has shown that considering how a developer reads and experiences the code can be an indicator of its quality. In our research, we built on these insights and designed, trained, and evaluated the first deep neural network that aligns a developer’s eye gaze with the code tokens the developer looks at to predict code comprehension and perceived difficulty. To train and analyze our approach, we performed an experiment in which 27 participants worked on a range of 16 short code comprehension tasks while we collected fine-grained gaze data using an eye tracker. The results of our evaluation show that our deep neural sequence model that integrates both the human gaze and the stimulus code, can predict (a) code comprehension and (b) the perceived code difficulty significantly better than current state-of-the-art reference methods. We also show that aligning human gaze with code leads to better performance than models that rely solely on either code or human gaze. We discuss potential applications and propose future work to build better human-inclusive code evaluation systems.
Fri 19 JulDisplayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change
15:30 - 16:00 | |||
15:30 30mPoster | Predicting Failures of Autoscaling Distributed Applications Posters Giovanni Denaro University of Milano - Bicocca, Noura El Moussa USI Università della Svizzera Italiana & SIT Schaffhausen Institute of Technology, Rahim Heydarov USI Università della Svizzera Italiana, Francesco Lomio SIT Schaffhausen Institute of Technology, Mauro Pezze USI Università della Svizzera Italiana & SIT Schaffhausen Institute of Technology, Ketai Qiu USI Università della Svizzera Italiana | ||
15:30 30mPoster | On the Contents and Utility of IoT Cybersecurity Guidelines Posters Jesse Chen University of Arizona, Dharun Anandayuvaraj Purdue University, James C. Davis Purdue University, Sazzadur Rahaman University of Arizona | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Demystifying Invariant Effectiveness for Securing Smart Contracts Posters Zhiyang Chen University of Toronto, Ye Liu Nanyang Technological University, Sidi Mohamed Beillahi University of Toronto, Yi Li Nanyang Technological University, Fan Long University of Toronto | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Improving the Learning of Code Review Successive Tasks with Cross-Task Knowledge Distillation Posters | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Tools for Smart Contracts: How Far Are We? Posters Kaixuan Li East China Normal University, Yue Xue Metatrust Labs, Sen Chen Tianjin University, Han Liu East China Normal University, Kairan Sun Nanyang Technological University, Ming Hu Singapore Management University, Haijun Wang Xi'an Jiaotong University, Yang Liu Nanyang Technological University, Yixiang Chen East China Normal University | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Predicting Code Comprehension: A Novel Approach to Align Human Gaze with Code Using Deep Neural Networks Posters Tarek Alakmeh University of Zurich, David Reich University of Potsdam, Lena Jäger University of Zurich, Thomas Fritz University of Zurich | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Decomposing Software Verification Using Distributed Summary Synthesis Posters DOI Pre-print | ||
15:30 30mPoster | EyeTrans: Merging Human and Machine Attention for Neural Code Summarization Posters Yifan Zhang Vanderbilt University, Jiliang Li Vanderbilt University, Zachary Karas Vanderbilt University, Aakash Bansal University of Notre Dame, Toby Jia-Jun Li University of Notre Dame, Collin McMillan University of Notre Dame, Kevin Leach Vanderbilt University, Yu Huang Vanderbilt University | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Mining Action Rules for Defect Reduction Planning Posters Khouloud Oueslati Polytechnique Montréal, Canada, Gabriel Laberge Polytechnique Montréal, Canada, Maxime Lamothe Polytechnique Montreal, Foutse Khomh Polytechnique Montréal | ||
15:30 30mPoster | How does Simulation-based Testing for Self-driving Cars match Human Perception? Posters Christian Birchler Zurich University of Applied Sciences & University of Bern, Tanzil Kombarabettu Mohammed University of Zurich, Pooja Rani University of Zurich, Teodora Nechita Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Timo Kehrer University of Bern, Sebastiano Panichella Zurich University of Applied Sciences | ||
15:30 30mPoster | Beyond Code Generation: An Observational Study of ChatGPT Usage in Software Engineering Practice Posters Ranim Khojah Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Mazen Mohamad Chalmers | RISE - Research Institutes of Sweden, Philipp Leitner Chalmers | University of Gothenburg, Francisco Gomes de Oliveira Neto Chalmers | University of Gothenburg |
This room is conjoined with the Foyer to provide additional space for the coffee break, and hold poster presentations throughout the event.